the care and maintenance of a king
by bioat
Summary: the sickfic we deserve: saber is sick, and everyone in the emiya household is unavailable. archer is dragged in unwillingly. lancer laughs at the side. x-posted from ao3.


just porting something from ao3, because i heard the fate fandom is more active here. enjoy!

* * *

Archer has four contacts on his phone: the Emiya house (by pure necessity, Rider insists), Rider herself, his boss, and Lancer.

" _Yo, Archer! You free today?_ "

Needless to say, only one of these regularly contacts him.

"Yes? Do you need me to cover a shift?" Lancer's jobs are simple, often needing no more skill than, well, the household ones he'd long since left unused.

Lancer laughs nervously. " _Ah, not quite. Your princess called and asked for a favor, all in a hurry-like, but I'm heading to work and I can't miss today—_ "

So roundabout, Archer thinks. He's avoiding the topic. "What did Rin want?"

Silence on the other end of the line. He hears Lancer sigh. " _Saber's sick,_ " he says bluntly, and Archer suddenly gets why he was so hesitant. " _Everyone's busy with something up in school, some sort of cultural festival—_ " Yes, he'd definitely heard Rin talk about that one, how everyone was excited for it, how even Caster, Rider, and Illya had volunteered to help with it somehow, "— _and there's no one else who can come. She says it's pretty bad, Rider's waiting at the Emiya's for someone to cover for her—I can come over after my shift, it won't be so bad—_ "

Archer feels the headache coming on.

(+)

True to Lancer's word, Rider is hovering outside the gate, looking distractedly at her watch as Archer walks up. She nods at him, with no surprise on her face. Lancer must have called her back. He had wondered why she didn't call him herself, although he gets the feeling she knew he would have refused.

"She's asleep in her room," she says without preamble, already mounting the bike. "I'll leave it up to you, then. Thank you, Archer."

Rider bikes away, leaving him at the gate. He turns to look at the house, the same one he'd lived in as a human.

It wasn't that he avoided or hated this house. It was just a place of memory, one that he and this Emiya Shirou shared—but in this world, in this life, it was not _his_ house. The memories he had were "wrong". He was not this world's Emiya Shirou—he was an aberration, a blip in the system, here through mistakes made by the universe and didn't bother fixing.

But he isn't here to be existentialist, he thinks bitterly. He's here for a favor.

The aberration enters the house.

(+)

Walking through the house feels like brushing cobwebs from the deepest recesses of his memories: _that's right_ , the wood grain on the floor swirled this way and the walls this shade of off white. He glances into the empty living room, noticing an unfamiliar flower pot on the kitchen counter. From the Matou's, probably. He walks on.

He feels a presence coming from one of the guest rooms, so that's probably where Saber is. He stands still in the hallway for a few seconds, pondering what to do with this piece of information.

He should… probably go there.

(+)

Saber is asleep on her futon, as Rider said, and once Archer confirms this, his instinct is to back out of the room and stand guard on the roof, as he always did when he visited this house with Rin. But Saber groans in her sleep, so quietly it might have been a rustle of bedclothes, and Archer's eyes snap back to her.

He enters the room as quietly as he can. Her face, the only part of her not covered by the comforter, is flushed pink with fever and shining with sweat. His first instinct is to check her temperature, like anyone else caring for someone with a fever would, but that involved touching her and that was, pretty sure, outside of his depth.

He brings a hand to her forehead, close but not touching, and even then he can feel the heat from her body. He tsks. Whatever happened to make her this sick, he was going to have a word with Shirou and the rest of this household.

Archer passes the morning on the roof directly across her room, watching the surroundings and ready to go to her should she exit the room or call for anyone. But the household remains still and her door stays shut. He thinks he hears movement once or twice, but nothing loud or drastic enough to warrant his action.

Thirty minutes before lunchtime, he figures he'll make her something, so he heads down to the kitchen and opens the fridge. He decides to make her a sweet English porridge with the strawberries, oatmeal, and cream he finds, remembering how she preferred sweet things. It would help with getting some vitamins, too.

He serves the oatmeal in a heated bowl and covers it up so it stays hot for longer, along with some of the black tea he finds in the cupboard and some medicine. He always was a control freak about the organization of the kitchen, and that didn't change with this version of himself. It made preparing the meal much easier.

Being thankful about something related to Shirou.

Archer blinks.

He picks up the tray and heads back to her room, balancing it on one hand as he pushes the door open. Saber is still asleep, making him worry a little as he sets down the tray near her, but not close enough that she'd knock it over. Did sick people sleep this much? Then again, maybe she woke up and moved around, one of those times he thought he heard noise. She would have felt his magical presence, surely, and called for him if she wished, thinking him to be Rider or Sakura.

He sits on the floor, unsure of what to do. Would she be able to feed herself? Could he just leave and come back later for the empty tray? After sitting around in indecision, during which he realizes she could wake up at any moment, he quickly finds a pen and paper and writes a note to call if she needed him, otherwise he'll be back for the tray. He puts the note under the bowl and, with one final glance at her, unmoving under her sheets, he leaves.

The door slides closed behind the former Guardian, and the fallen king warily opens her eyes, a sigh escaping her lips.

(+)

He ends up going back three hours later to make absolutely sure she was done eating, because the alternative was to sit outside the door listening in rapt attention for sounds of her eating or falling over and choking on the lunch he'd made. He comes in and takes the tray quietly (she's _still_ asleep. Archer is getting more pissed at Shirou for letting her get _this_ sick) and washes the dishes efficiently, sliding everything back into place.

Unsure what else to do until Saber called, he goes back up to his spot on the roof to wait for the rest of the household to come home.

(+)

"Oi! _Archer!_ "

"It's about time," Archer mumbles to himself, squinting at Lancer, clad in a white shirt and black jeans, jumping up next to him on the roof.

"Well?" Lancer says expectantly. "Where's the poor lass?"

"In her room," he replies, gesturing. "She's been sleeping most of the day. She's still asleep, I think." Lancer stares at him with something akin to disbelief. Archer's brows knit together. "What?"

"Did you just sit here and look at her door all day? That's not what looking after her means—"

"I made her lunch and gave her medicine," Archer says, only slightly defensively. "Rider had enough foresight to leave some clean towels with her."

"Yeah, but you're all the way _out here_ —"

"I left her a _note_."

"A note!" Lancer barks his laughter, for a moment sounding like the hound he was named for. "Excuse me, then. Are you _an idiot_ , Archer, did you even _talk_ to her?"

The truth would probably be better off unsaid, Archer decides, looking away from Lancer's face, sighing.

"I _knew_ it." He hears Lancer move, but he keeps his eyes away pointedly. "Well, I'm gonna check up on her, you gonna stay here?"

"I'll keep watch."

(+)

Lancer slides the door closed behind him, peering cautiously at the comforter-clad figure on the futon, back turned to the door. If Archer was telling the truth, then she must have been asleep for around seven hours since the morning. It wouldn't hurt to wake her up for a bit.

"Hey, Saber?"

Saber's body jerks in what Lancer can't help but think is surprise, turning slowly to lie on her back and look at him, eyes widening. She quickly regains her usual grandiose composure, or as much as she could, lying in a sweaty comforter after a day of sickness.

"Ah, L-Lancer. I presume it was you who was asked to care for me."

Lancer raises his eyebrows. Warily, he replies, "Well. I'm here now. You feelin' any better?"

Saber smiles, her eyes softening. "Yes, much better." She hesitates, then adds, "Um, I wanted to compliment you for the lunch. I give much credit to the porridge for helping my recovery. It truly was the perfect thing to eat while sick, while not compromising on the quality of the taste—"

He realizes, belatedly, that he must have a stupid-looking grin on his face, because Saber stops mid-sentence to glare at him, as though to ask, _what's so funny?_

"No, sorry, I, ah—" Lancer clears his throat and wonders if Archer could hear them talking. "Sorry. Continue."

Saber glares at him. "Is something the matter, Lancer?" When he shrugs, she manages to glare at him harder. "You did not talk to me before this. I had stirred awake when you made to check my temperature but stopped short of touching my forehead like Shirou and the others do. I had rather thought you were upset with me somehow, and I endeavored to be as little of a bother as possible. However, the porridge you made really was extraordinary. I thought you would like to know that, at least."

The King of Knights pouts with all the indignation of a lion cub, sick and snuggled under a comforter. At that, Lancer snaps and loses it—he bursts out laughing, in a volume he _just knows_ carries over to the roof across the room.


End file.
